Learn It Properly

The whole run, start to finish, in the order it has to happen. Most self taught detailers are strong in two or three stages and guessing at the rest, and it is the gaps that cost them time on every car.

• Why wheels and arches come first, and what it costs you when they do not
• Pre wash, contact wash and safe wash technique that does not install swirls
• Clay and chemical decontamination, and how to tell which one a car needs
• Drying without putting marks back into the paint you just cleaned
• Interior sequence, and the parts of a cabin that get skipped
• Reading a finished car under light instead of hoping it is right

Suited to Anyone starting out, or a detailer who learned off videos and wants the gaps filled in properly.

The skill that separates a detailer from a car washer, and the one that takes the longest to get right. You will spend the day on a machine, on real paint, with Jesse watching what your hands are doing.

• Inspection light, and learning to actually see what is in the paint
• Paint depth, clear coat, and knowing what a panel can safely give up
• Pad and compound pairing, and why the combination matters more than the brand
• Machine control: pressure, speed, pass count and arm movement
• Cutting and refining as two separate jobs with two separate goals
• Panel wipe down, and spotting filler before the customer does
• Where to stop, and how to tell a customer no

Suited to Detailers already confident with a safe wash. This is the module most people come for, and the one that pays for itself fastest.

Coating is the easy part. Everything before it is the job. A day on preparation, application and the conditions that decide whether a coating lasts eight years or eight months.

• Why preparation is ninety per cent of a coating result
• Panel wipe, residue, and what stops a coating bonding
• Temperature, humidity and dust, and why a driveway fights you
• Application technique, levelling, and reading flash time
• Catching high spots before they cure instead of polishing them out after
• Cure control, and what to tell a customer about the first week
• Writing aftercare that protects you as much as the car

Suited to Detailers who can already correct paint. Coating swirled paint locks the defects in, so correction comes first.

The hardest install in detailing and the least forgiving of a bad surface. Film is fitted wet, shaped onto curves, and every mistake stays visible under a clear layer for years.

• Surface preparation, and why film is unforgiving of anything left behind
• Pattern cutting and fitting film to the panel in front of you
• Slip and tack solutions, and what each one is actually doing
• Squeegee technique, stretching, and working film onto a curve
• Wrapped edges and tuck lines, and when a panel will not allow one
• Dealing with fingers, creases and lift before they set
• Cure, inspection and handover

Suited to Detailers with correction experience who want to add the highest value service in the trade.

A clean tint install is mostly glass preparation and heat shaping. Both are learnable in a day, and both are where every speck and crease comes from.

• Glass preparation, and what gets sealed under the film when you rush it
• Stripping old film and adhesive without wrecking the demister lines
• Cutting film to the glass on the car in front of you
• Heat shaping curved glass so the edges do not lift later
• Fitting in a controlled space, and what dust actually does to a job
• Victorian legal shade levels, and quoting a job that will pass inspection

Suited to Detailers adding tinting as a service, or anyone fitting film who keeps getting contamination.

The part nobody teaches, and the reason good detailers go broke. How to quote properly, where the time actually goes, and how to say no to the jobs that cost you money.

• Quoting on the car in front of you instead of off a price list
• Where the hours really go, measured rather than guessed
• Pricing correction when every car is a different amount of work
• Setting expectations before the job so handover is not a negotiation
• Which jobs to turn down, and how to turn them down well
• Photographing work so it actually brings the next customer in

Suited to Detailers already doing the work who are busy and still not making money. Usually booked onto the end of another day.